Book III.—Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments.
Now hath the mother, formerly surnamed
Barren, giv’n birth: now a new people, born
From the free woman, joys: (the slave expelled,
Deservedly, with her proud progeny;
5 Who also leaves ungratefully behind
The waters of the living fount, and drinks—
Errant on heated plains—’neath glowing star:)
Now can the Gentiles as their parent claim
Abraham; who, the Lord’s voice following,
10 Like him, have all things left, life’s pilgrimage
To enter. “Be glad, barren one;” conceive
The promised people; “break thou out, and cry,”
Who with no progeny wert blest; of whom
Spake, through the seers, the Spirit of old time:
15 She hath borne, out of many nations, one;
With whose beginning are her pious limbs
Ever in labour.
Hers “just Abel” was,
A pastor and a cattle—master he;
Whom violence of brother’s right hand slew
20 Of old. Her Enoch, signal ornament,
Limb from her body sprung, by counsel strove
To recall peoples gone astray from God
And following misdeed, (while raves on earth
The horde of robber-renegades,) to flee
25 The giants’sacrilegious cruel race;
Faithful in all himself. With groaning deep
Did he please God, and by deserved toil
Translated is reserved as a pledge,
With honour high. Perfect in praise, and found
30 Faultless, and just—God witnessing the fact—
In an adulterous people, Noah (he
Who in twice fifty years the ark did weave)
By deeds and voice the coming ruin told.
Favour he won, snatched out of so great waves
35 Of death, and, with his progeny, preserved.
Then, in the generation following,
Is Abraham, whose sons ye do deny
Yourselves to be; who first—race, country, sire,
All left behind—at suasion of God’s voice
40 Withdrew to realms extern: such honours he
At God’s sublime hand worthily deserved
As to be father to believing tribes
And peoples. Jacob with the patriarchs